Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
While our users have spent more time connected to 4G across all three operators than that seen in our last report, our O2 users saw the most improvement. The operator’s 4G Availability score rose by a remarkable 7.9 percentage points from 84.1% last time to 92%. As a result, O2 has gone from third place to statistically tying with Telekom for the top spot. In addition, this is the first time that our German users reported spending more than 90% of their time connected to 4G across all three operators.
Telekom remains the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award, with our users on its network reporting a 7.3 Mbps (17.3%) increase in their average speeds. However, our Vodafone users saw the largest improvement — a remarkable rise of 9.5 Mbps (33.9%). This has caused Telekom’s lead to drop from the 14.3 Mbps seen in our last report to a still impressive 12.1 Mbps. Meanwhile, O2’s Download Speed Experience score rose by 5.8 Mbps (24.7%) to 29.3 Mbps — 20.2 Mbps and 8.1 Mbps behind Telekom and Vodafone, respectively.
In addition to winning the Games Experience award outright for the second time in a row, Telekom also performed strongly at the city-level. As well as being the outright winner for Games Experience in four cities and tying in the remaining 20 cities we analyzed, in five cities Telekom’s scores placed it in the highest possible category — Excellent (85 or above). This means that the vast majority of users deemed their network experience to be acceptable when playing multiplayer mobile games over a cellular connection. Nearly all respondents felt like they had control over the game and received immediate feedback on their actions.
The experience of our users when using over-the-top voice services and when playing multiplayer mobile games over cellular connections has improved across all three operators since our last report. Our users reported having a Good (80-87) Voice App Experience — up from Acceptable (74-80) — indicating that many users were satisfied. In addition, all three operators placed in the Good (75-85) category for Games Experience, up from the Fair (65-75) rating they all received in our last report.
Telekom remains the dominant operator as far as our awards table is concerned — the operator wins five out of seven awards outright and is the joint winner for a sixth. However, it has been forced to share the 4G Availability award with O2 because of a surge in O2’s score since the last report. In addition, Telekom’s leads on Video Experience, Games Experience, Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience have all declined since last time due to its rivals in second place seeing larger increases in their scores.
While there is still some room for improvement for Germany’s 4G network experience, the growing number of 5G-compatible phones in circulation will increasingly make 5G the battleground of choice for operators. Both 5G measurements and those from previous generations of mobile network technology are included when determining the overall scores for each award category in this report.
Vodafone announced the launch of its 5G standalone access (SA) network in April — the operator claims to have switched on around 1,000 5G SA antennas using the 3.5 GHz band in 170 cities and municipalities with the aim of increasing this to around 4,000 antennas by the end of of the year along with launching the technology in other frequency ranges. Meanwhile, O2 has upped the maximum speed of its O2 Free Unlimited Max tariff from 300 Mbps to 500 Mbps. The operator expects to cover more than 30% of the population with 5G by the end of this year with plans to provide nationwide 5G coverage by the end of 2025. In contrast, in late March Telekom claimed to have already covered 80% of the German population with 5G, with plans to increase this to 90% by the end of the year.
Not all the recent mobile news is about 5G — Vodafone claims to have mostly completed the technical preparations that are needed for it to switch off its 3G network on June 30. The operator planned to begin the switch-off process in the cities of Mainz, Wiesbaden and Chemnitz from May 3. Once complete, Vodafone will have reallocated the remaining 5 MHz of 2100 MHz that was being used for 3G services for newer technology such as 4G or in time 5G.
In this report we have looked at the 90-day period starting January 1, 2021 and ending March 31, 2021, and measured the user experience across all our key metrics for Germany's three leading operators — O2, Telekom and Vodafone — both at a national level and in 24 of the country's largest cities.
| Mobile Experience Awards Germany | |||
|---|---|---|---|
May 2021,
Germany Report
|
O
O2
|
T
Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
May 2021,
Germany
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
T
Telekom
|
|
Games Experience
|
T
Telekom
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
T
Telekom
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
T
Telekom
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
T
Telekom
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
May 2021, Germany
|
|---|---|
|
4G Availability
|
O
O2
T
Telekom
|
Telekom is the outright winner of the Video Experience award for the fifth time in a row and remains the only operator to have held the award since it was added to our German mobile network experience reports back in May 2019. Telekom is still the only operator to place in the Excellent (75 or above) category, as both O2 and Vodafone have retained their Very Good (65-75) ratings — and this has been the case ever since our May 2020 report.
However, Vodafone was only 0.2 points away from an Excellent rating. Of the three operators Telekom has seen the smallest improvement in its score since the previous report — a rise of 1.3 points compared to the 3.1 and 2.4 point gains made by O2 and Vodafone, respectively. These changes have caused Telekom’s lead over second-placed Vodafone to fall from 3.1 points to 2.1 points.
Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's network. It uses an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people. To calculate Video Experience, we directly measure video streams from end-user devices and use this ITU approach to quantify the overall Video Experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
Telekom is the outright winner of the Games Experience award for the second report in a row, while Vodafone and O2 remain statistically tied for second place. All three operators have placed in the Good (75-85) category, up from the Fair (65-75) rating they all received in our previous report. A Good Games Experience indicates that most users deemed the experience acceptable. Their gameplay experience was generally controllable and users received immediate feedback between their actions and the outcomes in the game. Most users did not experience a delay between their actions and the game.
Games Experience quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters — such as latency, jitter and packet loss — and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games — such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor — played around the world.
Vodafone once again wins the Voice App Experience award, holding it outright ever since our May 2020 report when the operator pried it from Telekom’s grasp. This time Vodafone wins with a score of 81.5 points, 0.7 points higher than second-placed Telekom’s score of 80.8 points. Vodafone’s lead has nearly doubled from the 0.4 points it commanded in our last report, thanks to the operator’s score rising by 3.3 points to Telekom’s increase of three points. Meanwhile, O2’s score rose by 4.3 points to 80.5 points.
All three operators have moved up a category — from Acceptable (74-80) to Good (80-87). A Good Voice App Experience indicates that many users were satisfied. Minor quality impairments were experienced by some users. Sometimes the background was not quite clear, it could have been either hazy or not loud enough. Clicking sounds or distortion were very occasionally present.
Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.
Telekom wins the Download Speed Experience award yet again — this time with a score of 49.5 Mbps — 12.1 Mbps ahead of second-placed Vodafone’s score of 37.4 Mbps. This is slightly down from the lead of 14.3 Mbps Telekom commanded in our last report, as Vodafone’s score has risen by a remarkable 9.5 Mbps (33.9%), while Telekom’s increased by a still impressive 7.3 Mbps (17.3%). Telekom has held this award outright ever since we first started reporting on the German mobile network experience back in May 2018.
While our O2 users saw a 5.8 Mbps (24.7%) increase in their average download speeds, the larger improvements seen by their counterparts on Telekom and Vodafone mean that the gap between O2 and its rivals has widened. O2’s score was 20.2 Mbps behind Telekom’s and 8.1 Mbps behind Vodafone’s. The operator was also the only German operator with a score below 30 Mbps.
Telekom is the winner of the Upload Speed Experience award, with a score of 13.1 Mbps and a lead of 2.7 Mbps (25.9%) over second-placed O2’s score of 10.4 Mbps. This is down from the lead of 3.5 Mbps that Telekom commanded in our last report, due to a 1.7 Mbps (19.1%) increase in the average upload speeds seen by our O2 users and a 0.9 Mbps (7.5%) rise in those seen by their Telekom counterparts. However, out of the three operators Vodafone’s score rose the most — increasing by 2.1 Mbps (27.7%) to hit 9.6 Mbps.
For the first time in a German mobile network experience report, our users across all three operators spent more than 90% of their time connected to 4G — with scores ranging between 91.6% and 92.2%. This remarkable achievement highlights the maturity of Germany’s 4G networks. However, this isn’t the only impressive feat that our users have experienced.
O2’s 4G Availability score has rocketed since our last report — rising by 7.9 percentage points from 84.1% last time to 92%. This has caused the operator to go from third place in our last report to jointly winning the 4G Availability award in a statistical tie with Telekom. This award is made even more impressive because Telekom’s score also rose by 2.1 percentage points to 92.2% since the last report. Meanwhile, Vodafone’s score rose by 3.7 percentage points to 91.6%, not far off from the two winners.
Telekom is once again the outright winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award. It has held this award ever since we added it to our German mobile network experience reports in May 2020. However, just 0.1 points separate Telekom from second-placed Vodafone, down from the lead of 0.2 points it commanded in our previous report. All three operators have seen their scores improve since last time, with O2 enjoying the largest improvement — a rise of 0.4 points compared to the rises of 0.2 and 0.1 points that were seen by our Vodafone and Telekom users, respectively. This means that O2’s score was just 0.2-0.3 points behind those of its rivals, compared to the gap of 0.4-0.6 that existed in our last report.
Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience is a measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators. In simple terms, 4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.
Turning to our analysis of the mobile experience in 24 of Germany’s cities, Telekom wins 51 awards outright out of a possible 144 and is a joint winner for another 86 awards. Telekom’s outright city wins include 19 for both Download Speed Experience and for Upload Speed Experience. In contrast, O2 racks up only three outright wins — for 4G Availability in Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen — and is a joint winner for 51 awards. Vodafone did not win outright at the city-level but it is a joint winner for 90 city-level awards. Across the 24 cities and six metrics, our users saw three-way statistical ties for 47 city-level awards.
4G Availability for our Telekom users ranged between 95.1% in Nuremberg to 87.9% in Stuttgart, while that for our O2 users varied between the 96.1% reported in Essen to 88.7% in Freiberg. Vodafone’s 4G Availability scores were between 95.2% in Bremen and 88.7% in Aachen. Of the three operators, O2 had 95% or higher scores in five cities (Essen, Bremen, Nuremberg, Dusseldorf and Berlin), while the same was true for Telekom and Vodafone in just one city each.
Average download speeds varied between the 82.1 Mbps seen by our Telekom users in Bonn and the 17.9 Mbps reported by our O2 users in Saarbrucken, while the operators’ Upload Speed Experience scores were between Telekom’s score of 20.2 Mbps in Bonn and O2’s score of 9.1 Mbps in Freiberg.
Telekom racks up eight sole wins and 16 joint wins for Video Experience, while Vodafone and O2 have 16 and two joint wins, respectively. Our Telekom users had an Excellent (75 or above) Video Experience in all 24 cities — Vodafone fell short of the same achievement due to Very Good (65-75) ratings in Bonn and Saarbrucken, while O2 was further off the mark with only 10 Excellent ratings — it placed in the Very Good category in the remaining 14 cities.
Both Telekom and Vodafone are joint winners for Games Experience in 20 cities, but Telekom is the outright winner in another four. O2 is a joint winner in 15 cities. Only our Telekom users in five cities — Dresden, Bochum, Bonn, Cologne and Dortmund — placed in the Excellent (85 or above) category. Our Telekom users in the remaining cities had a Good (75-85) Games Experience as did our Vodafone users in all 24 cities. O2 placed in the Good category in all but Freiburg and Augsburg, where it fell into the Fair (65-75) category.
There is less differentiation between the operators in terms of Voice App Experience as there is only a single outright win — Telekom in Bonn. In addition, all three operators placed in the Good (80-87) category, with just two exceptions — our O2 users reported having an Acceptable (74-80) experience in Bremen and Augsburg.
Select any region or city below to display individual breakdown
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
Get in touch for more information on our analytics solutions and industry reports.
Opensignal Limited retains ownership of this report including all intellectual property rights, data, content, graphs & analysis. Reports produced by Opensignal Limited may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed, published for any commercial purpose (including use in advertisements or other promotional content) without prior written consent. Journalists are encouraged to quote information included in Opensignal reports provided they include clear source attribution. For more information, contact [email protected].
